When, Adam, Hugo and I started writing our new book "SMarketing" which is available from Amazon on the 1st October we spent time re-looking at the marketing and sales process.
Classic process is that marketing create leads and then hand them to sales, who then say they are rubbish. So sales go off and create their own. Then if you are lucky, some sort of qualification process is put in place in the marketing handoff.
Either way there is a handoff or often worse there is a massive gap between the two departments.
The thing is, that with the advent of the internet sales and marketing is changing. And it has to as people are buying differently.
Traditionally marketing was involved in brand and lead generation, now the the advent of social selling and employee advocacy sales and HR are in control of the brand and sales is control of the lead generation. Which is why we are advocating a merger of the two departments.
That's all very well but there are too many books that talk about a "why" but not a "How". In my boo "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers" I wrote a handbook on how to social sell. With Smarketing, we have done the same and written a book on how to create a smarketing environment within your business.
B2B organizations have set up their commercial engines to function in a handoff mode,” said Adamson, “Marketing works in digital and Sales works in person. Marketing works at arm’s length at scale and Sales is all about looking your customer in the eye and sitting across the table having a conversation. There are all sorts of reasons why that would happen over the years, but what’s interesting is as a result, we’ve set up an entire commercial infrastructure that is built around the handoff. You have Marketing early, generating demand, nurturing demand, dripping content out to increase consumption. And at some point, of course, that opportunity becomes increasingly qualified. We stamp it ready for Sales and pass it over the wall and say, ‘Okay, Sales, go get it.’ At that point, it feels like our job in Marketing is done.
